1. Technical Field
This application relates to a liquid crystal display, and more particularly to a liquid crystal display device and a driving method thereof that may reduce the number of data lines as well as the number of data drive integrated circuits corresponding thereto.
2. Related Art
A liquid crystal display (LCD) controls a light transmittance of a liquid crystal using an electric field to thereby display a picture. The LCD includes a liquid crystal display panel having a pixel matrix, and a driving circuit for driving the liquid crystal display panel. The driving circuit drives the pixel matrix such that picture information can be displayed on the display panel.
FIG. 1 shows a related art liquid crystal display device, which includes a liquid crystal display panel 2, a data driver 4 for driving data lines DL1 to DLm of the liquid crystal display panel 2, and a gate driver 6 for driving gate lines GL1 to GLn of the liquid crystal display panel 2.
The liquid crystal display panel 2 is comprised of thin film transistors (TFT), each of which is provided at each intersection between the gate lines GL1 to GLn and the data lines DL1 to DLm, and liquid crystal cells connected to the TFTs and arranged in a matrix configuration.
The gate driver 6 sequentially applies a gate signal to each gate line GL1 to GLn in response to a control signal from a timing controller (not shown). The data driver 4 converts data R, G and B video data from the timing controller into analog video signals and applies the analog video signals for one horizontal line to the data lines DL1 to DLm during one horizontal period when a gate signal is applied to the corresponding gate line GL1 to GLn.
The thin film transistor (TFT) applies a data from the data lines DL1 to DLm to the liquid crystal cell in response to a control signal applied to the gate lines GL1 to GLn. The liquid crystal cell can be equivalently expressed as a liquid crystal capacitor Clc because it is comprised of a common electrode a pixel electrode opposed to each other, having a liquid crystal therebetween. Such a liquid crystal cell includes a storage capacitor (not shown) connected to a preceding gate line in order to keep a data voltage charged in the liquid crystal capacitor Clc until the next time the data voltage is applied thereto.
The liquid crystal cells of such a related art LCD arranged in vertical lines whose number equals the number (i.e., m) of the data lines DL1 to DLm as they are provided at intersections between the gate lines GL1 to GLn and the data lines DL1 to DLm. That is, the liquid crystal cells are arranged in a matrix configuration in such a manner to make m vertical lines and n horizontal lines.
Accordingly, the related art LCD requires m data lines DL1 to DLm so as to drive the liquid crystal cells having m vertical lines. Therefore, the related art LCD has a drawback in that a number of data lines m are required to drive the liquid crystal display panel 2. Furthermore, the related art LCD has a disadvantage in that a large number of data driving integrated circuits (IC's) must be included in the data driver 4 so as to drive the m data lines, resulting in an undesirable manufacture cost.